I thought this game was phenomenal once you get used to it. It's also better on a second playthrough apart from the dumb bosses. I didn't have a problem with the to be honest as they only took a few hits. How can anyone say the original is better than this? The levels aren't as big but there's more exploration to be done here than mostly any game that came out in the last four years.

I can't wait to play the game again tonight on my third playthrough :D

Romeo

30th Mar 2012, 14:53

I had issues with the first game, to be honest, but I'm not ready to call Human Revolution better. HR's faults (Third-person, regenerating health, broken XP system) detracted too much for me to appreciate the other facets of the game more than the original. Same issue I had with Skyrim. Improvements? Yes. But too many downgrades to consider better than the previous entrants.

ⓣⓐⓕⓕⓔⓡ

30th Mar 2012, 15:06

"Better than the previous entrants"?? So Invisible War was better than HR? You are wrong.

JCpies

30th Mar 2012, 15:11

Human Revolution is better in many ways, and also worse in many ways. It's possible this thread is looking for some rage or something, but it's been discussed before so I'm not going through all the pros and cons.

Pretentious Old Man.

30th Mar 2012, 19:07

I can see most people are steering clear of this thread, but I don't think that's fair on you, Taffer. Basically, to put it into Thief context (since I presume from your name that you are a Thief fan?), to much of the Deus Ex community (me included, naturally) saying that Human Revolution is better than the original is like saying that Deadly Shadows is better than The Metal Age. Deadly Shadows was a nice game, could be a lot of fun, but had its issues. The Metal Age was a masterpiece, albeit a slightly rough one in places. That's exactly the case between the original Deus Ex and HR. HR is a good game. It offers some branching paths, which is good, it had a unique aesthetic and the story, whist completely listless by the end, was far better than most current games.

However, the original was a masterpiece. No other game has ever given you such flexibility or freedom to complete your objectives. No other game let you break the rules so damn comprehensively. In fact, they still don't. A lot of people still don't realise just how much sheer SCOPE for messing up there is in Deus Ex, and still coming through and being able to move on with the game. Deus Ex 3, for all that it does right, for me still feels like a game. There are still only a few things I can do at a time, only a few ways to make progress, only a few paths to take, all of which feel coded by a developer. Deus Ex, on the other hand, didn't feel like a game to me (horrendously rough bits of execution aside). In design terms, it was pure gold. So many paths, many of which could never have been dreamed of by developers, could be used. Rather than setting up multiple, discrete paths, Deus Ex gave you systems, which you could utilise your own way.

Don't get me wrong, Human Revolution is an excellent game, one of the best of 2011. It's just that, in my humble view, Deus Ex is the greatest game of all time. As you can see, there's quite a differential there. :D

Romeo

30th Mar 2012, 20:17

"Better than the previous entrants"?? So Invisible War was better than HR? You are wrong.
The entrants was more in regards to Skyrim. I logged more hours in Oblivion and substantially more hours in Morrowind than I did with it, I consider the previous two just better overall games.

But I do consider the original Deus Ex just a bit superior, despite its flaws (Never liked the health pack system all that much - would've preferred a "partial regen" system, and if I'm being honest the graphics are very dated by today's standards - so it's worse in that sense. And before anyone freaks out, I recognize that's not Deus Ex's fault, but it's still true). The biggest example is from POM. The original was designed to pretty much handle any sort of stupid shenanigans the player got up to; Human Revolution is designed to corral you away from doing those shenanigans at all. As he said, it feels much more like a game than a world. Which is a shame, because something I quite liked about Human Revolution was its world, I find it much more interesting and curious than the originals.

nomotog

30th Mar 2012, 21:07

You know in some ways HR was way better then DX. Like combat and stealth and how the two sides connect so well.

Pretentious Old Man.

30th Mar 2012, 21:29

I disagree. Maybe it's because I'm more of a nineties gamer, but I felt that DX1's combat was a perfect balance between player skill and character skill, befitting a quasi-RPG. I didn't like HR's leaning towards player skill so much, it trivialised the RPG side of the game.

I admit that DX1's stealth was borked, but then again, in my opinion so was Human Revolution. Which one you prefer is probably down to which one you can tolerate the most. Neither gets the nod from me.

Tverdyj

31st Mar 2012, 00:39

HR took the focus away from RPG. As a shooter, it handled better. Much better. At the same time, you lost the feeling of progression where as you get more and more badass (in terms of "more than human"), you can snipe people and cameras from farther away, and the ability of using the sniper rifle as a close-range gun.

Stealth was an issue in both games. call me old-fashioned, but I don't get the chest-high wall-based cover system, so i didn't use it. The original's tealth was more robust, using shadows, instead of pure LOS. it also had actual melee combat. HR's stealth is functional, even in pure First-person (which is how i've played it), but it's nothing special. EDIT: it also had the radar, which was just wrong /edit

Immersion--given the original's pedigree as the crowning achievement of the "immersion sim" sub-genre, HR is a bit lacking. in particular, I found the physics to be really jarring, especially considering that this was one of the few things IW actually got right. I'll probably have to hand this to the original.

Story-YMMV, but HR's story wasn't compelling to me. it was solid, I actually didn't mind the endings (I though it was a really faithful homage to IW. whetehr or not that's a good thing in itself, is, of course, debatable), but it lacked the intricacies that made the original special. Note: I haven't played TML yet, so I'm judging the vanilla game.

Exploration--this is the most contentious point for me. overall, HR gives us 2 hubs, compred to the 3 hubs of the original, so that's a minus. However, on a one by one comparison, they stack up pretty well. The best comparison, imho is between Wan Chai and Heng Sha. From a pure "exploration" perspective, I adored Heng Sha, especially the Yuzhao(?) apartment district (the one where Van Bruggen originally lived, not the pods). In my mind, it will forever be "the rooftop district", and it is the best thing ever in DXHR. I've spent hours traversing its roofs, looking for stuff, and doing all kinds of crazy jump stunts (especially once I installed ILS and became unkillable by falls), and every time I was given a quest in this area, I grinned in glee like a madman.
That being said, next to all this praise, comes probably my biggest single gripe with the game, where it fails miserably in comparison with the original: NPCs. yes, the original reused the same dozen of character models for the entire game, Yes, the voice acting was atrocious. But. There was always somehting worth listening to. Wan Chai was such an amazing place, because of its characters--because of the patrons on the market, whose lives played out in front of the player.
In HR, everyone and their aunt seem to talk about augmentations. And that's ok, I understand what the devs were trying to deliver. But what really annoyed and soured my perception of the game were 2 points of NPC interaction, that I will describe below.
1) In Detroit, next to the subway entrance, there is a woman. SHe complains about her boyfriend not picking her up, and there are threats of domestic violence once she gets home.
Once you go through the station, and come out on teh other side, there is....an identical character model, saying the exact same lines, with the exact same voice. This was very jarring.
2) In Heng Sha, walking from the Pods to the Limb Clinic, I overheard 2 women complaining about the current Chinese regime. curiosly, I approached, and tried talking to them--after all I remembered the awesome Australian bartenders of Wan Chai, and the half-dozen lines people next to them had about the world order and other fun stuff. instead of intelligent discourse, I was met with a stock standard "who are you, gwailo?"line that I've heard several dozen times already.
Now, I realise it's hard to record individual lines for every single character. but still, I feel that EM went the wrong way with quality of NPCs vs quantity. In this respect, the "exploration" part of HR was solely lacking. Although from purely level design, like I mentioned, Heng Sha is a masterpiece, pure and simple.

a necessary addenum--Hacking and conversations were amazing, great improvement from the original. Health system and resource management was all right. I won't judge HR lower because of it.

Thus, overall, HR was a great DX game. One of the best games of the last few years, undoubtedly. Was it better than the original? This is a difficult question, which is going to be highly subjective. there are some things it did amazingly well, even better than its predecessor, others that it did not. Regarding on what you value more, your opinion of which game is better may vary.

Romeo

1st Apr 2012, 00:50

POM, I'm going to parrot your opinion on this one: I think stealth was fairly poor in both games, and I preferred the combat in the originals more than the seconds (Something I recall saying from Mass Effect 1 to 2) because the skills actually had a purpose. With it being so heavily slanted to player skill, and with the health and cover systems both being too easy to abuse, combat is a joke, even on the hardest settings.

So all things considered, even though I had a number of issues with the original, I'd still say it was a more rewarding game to play.

nomotog

1st Apr 2012, 01:08

Are you people forgetting DX1's combat? It wasn't good. The enemy basically ran back and forth or left and right well shooting at you. To fight back, you ran left and right also shooting like a nut case. HR did a lot better with that. Stealth was less dodgy in HR too. Fewer rats in overcoats if you know what I mean.

Romeo

1st Apr 2012, 01:19

Are you people forgetting DX1's combat? It wasn't good. The enemy basically ran back and forth or left and right well shooting at you. To fight back, you ran left and right also shooting like a nut case. HR did a lot better with that. Stealth was less dodgy in HR too. Fewer rats in overcoats if you know what I mean.
The combat in HR for me essentially consisted of: Equip 10mm Pistol, headshot, take cover, wait, repeat. I actually liked the fact you were mildly useless with a weapon until you got better with it. I thought Human Revolution should've taken further, not done away with it (Instead of getting good with pistols, give us "weapon levels" where using an assault rifle would make you good with that particular assault rifle).

I'll agree that stealth was less dodgy. But it was also a total cakewalk, which isn't exactly an improvement either.

Tverdyj

1st Apr 2012, 03:39

Are you people forgetting DX1's combat? It wasn't good. The enemy basically ran back and forth or left and right well shooting at you. To fight back, you ran left and right also shooting like a nut case. HR did a lot better with that. Stealth was less dodgy in HR too. Fewer rats in overcoats if you know what I mean.

No, see above. HR made the combat like a shooter. it made it tighter and smoother, but it sacrificed a large measure of the RPG-like feeling of "progression" the original had.

also, RIP melee combat.

on stealth, it's a matter of taste. to EM's credit, they didn't make their cover system mandatory for those who prefer stealth, and I haven't had to use it once in my playthrough. lean keys would've been nice, though.

nomotog

1st Apr 2012, 04:24

The auto aim and huge cross hair is more of a side issue. There or not there I doubt it would have changed combat. I actually consider that more of a leveling thing anyway.

Oh the no melee combat is very real problem. Just feels wrong that you can reach out and riffle butt people. They should fix that in whatever game comes next.

Maialyn_Cables

8th May 2012, 22:21

POM, I'm going to parrot your opinion on this one: I think stealth was fairly poor in both games, and I preferred the combat in the originals more than the seconds (Something I recall saying from Mass Effect 1 to 2) because the skills actually had a purpose. With it being so heavily slanted to player skill, and with the health and cover systems both being too easy to abuse, combat is a joke, even on the hardest settings.

So all things considered, even though I had a number of issues with the original, I'd still say it was a more rewarding game to play.

Big +1 here. I like Mass Effect 2, but ME1 is a better game because it has more RPG style components. Me2 is almost 100% cover shooter with story. Even picking special skills doesnt matter since you can just take skills from any companion and add them to your own personal loadout.

At least in ME1, you had to choose a class and not just have biotics AND soldier skills whenever you wanted.

Deus Ex the first, it really felt like it forced you to play how you want, and to level up and pick skills that impact gameplay.

I love DX HR, but it's a stealth/cover shooter with a hacking mini game first, and an RPG a distant second. As others have mentioned, the game rewards you most for double back and exploring via stealth style crawlspaces, even without investing in any stealth Augs.

You can hang back and head shot everyone if you want, no matter which AUGs you have. Pick any weapon, kill everyone, then double back and farm explore XP. It's too easily cheesed.

I remember Deus Ex forcing you to choose your combat skills. In addition to augs, and weapon mods. Every little bit helps make the gameplay more specific.

In DXHR, which I have not finished yet, is there any penalty for doing stealth and hacking when I feel like it, but later using a sniper rifle, or a shotgun, or grenades or whatever weapon is handy?

But DXHR looks nice, and the shooting is much smoother. Stealth in DX1 was frustrating, in DXHR stealth is simply easy.

No one can ever really do stealth that is both somewhat realistic , yet fun. Splinter Cell 1 was a great example of trying to do realistic stealth, where you toss coke cans to make noise... tiny levels took 35 minutes to complete because of the enemy path wait times...

maikaal

16th May 2012, 10:37

As much as I dislike HR, I can see how the younger gamers can like it better than the original, but for veterans.. it's a sin. Not to say that I'm a veteran, I played DE only in 2008 but consider it far superior game than HR.

m G h m u o s

16th May 2012, 11:01

Its all to do with your expectations really, what genre game you thought you'd be getting. As a stealth/action shooter, DXHR is awesome. But as an RPG, like with a lot of franchises, most of those elements sorta go out the window.

Meridius

16th May 2012, 17:52

I can see most people are steering clear of this thread, but I don't think that's fair on you, Taffer. Basically, to put it into Thief context (since I presume from your name that you are a Thief fan?), to much of the Deus Ex community (me included, naturally) saying that Human Revolution is better than the original is like saying that Deadly Shadows is better than The Metal Age. Deadly Shadows was a nice game, could be a lot of fun, but had its issues. The Metal Age was a masterpiece, albeit a slightly rough one in places. That's exactly the case between the original Deus Ex and HR. HR is a good game. It offers some branching paths, which is good, it had a unique aesthetic and the story, whist completely listless by the end, was far better than most current games.

However, the original was a masterpiece. No other game has ever given you such flexibility or freedom to complete your objectives. No other game let you break the rules so damn comprehensively. In fact, they still don't. A lot of people still don't realise just how much sheer SCOPE for messing up there is in Deus Ex, and still coming through and being able to move on with the game. Deus Ex 3, for all that it does right, for me still feels like a game. There are still only a few things I can do at a time, only a few ways to make progress, only a few paths to take, all of which feel coded by a developer. Deus Ex, on the other hand, didn't feel like a game to me (horrendously rough bits of execution aside). In design terms, it was pure gold. So many paths, many of which could never have been dreamed of by developers, could be used. Rather than setting up multiple, discrete paths, Deus Ex gave you systems, which you could utilise your own way.

Don't get me wrong, Human Revolution is an excellent game, one of the best of 2011. It's just that, in my humble view, Deus Ex is the greatest game of all time. As you can see, there's quite a differential there. :D

I can agree with this. Despite the hype, I thought Human Revolution was only a pretty good game, not a great one. You mention a console game like Deadly Shadows and I think that's a good parallel comparison to both The Metal Age and Deus Ex 1. Both of those games were created for the PC, but Deadly Shadows and Human Revolution were created with consoles in mind. That's why they feel a lot more 'gamey' and less substantial. It seems to be the trend these days. :(

Anticitizen

16th May 2012, 19:52

The story's better, IMO, if only for the exclusion of alien greys and lizard chicken-thingies. :)

Romeo

16th May 2012, 21:56

I can agree with this. Despite the hype, I thought Human Revolution was only a pretty good game, not a great one. You mention a console game like Deadly Shadows and I think that's a good parallel comparison to both The Metal Age and Deus Ex 1. Both of those games were created for the PC, but Deadly Shadows and Human Revolution were created with consoles in mind. That's why they feel a lot more 'gamey' and less substantial. It seems to be the trend these days. :(
Ok, I'm tired of PC people assuming they're blameless in all this, we're going to sit down and have a nice, educational session for a moment.

Let's look at two games that seemed to polarize people's opinions of "This was a PC game" and "This was a console game". Dragon Age: Origins, versus Dragon Age II. The former everyone loved for its complexity, maturity and generally intelligent gameplay. The second was comparitively shallow, mindless and a bit more action game than RPG. As such, people overwhelmingly blamed consoles for that issue.

Sales for DA:O were 3.79 million, of which PC was 0.39 million. That works out to a ratio of approximately 10%.
Sales for DA:II were 1.45 million, of which PC was 0.29 million. That works out to a ratio of approximately 20%.

Looking at the math, it seems more console players walked away when it became "consolized", whereas PC's sales barely changed at all (While that same crowd blamed the console market). (Source: http://greywardens.com/2011/08/dragon-age-ii-how-badly-did-it-sell/)

Hell, even looking at the PC market as an exclusive shows it's simplifying down. Diablo 3 is being lambasted for "dumbing down", PC's golden-child Skyrim did away with much of its complexity and PC's best selling game was Call of Duty.

So, until the point where that market has matured past those very same issue, stop blaming everyone else for the market. Console players aren't perfect, and neither are PC players. ;)

Ashpolt

16th May 2012, 22:42

Sales for DA:O were 3.79 million, of which PC was 0.39 million. That works out to a ratio of approximately 10%.
Sales for DA:II were 1.45 million, of which PC was 0.29 million. That works out to a ratio of approximately 20%.

Looking at the math, it seems more console players walked away when it became "consolized", whereas PC's sales barely changed at all (While that same crowd blamed the console market). (Source: http://greywardens.com/2011/08/dragon-age-ii-how-badly-did-it-sell/)

Or an alternate way of reading that would be that more console players were put off by the so-called "complexity" of the first title, and decided not to even give the sequel a try.

That said, I don't disagree with your overall point, just your interpretation of statistics. :P

m G h m u o s

16th May 2012, 23:35

Well I'd say publishers and marketting are more to blame than any specific platform. Its just peoples associations that they have in their head with them really. Blaming customers/consumers if an iffy thing. Like do you condemn a murderer with the motive or the man who gave him the means.

And yes, slightly disappointing dumbed down games are equal to the act of murder llolololo

Romeo

17th May 2012, 07:15

Or an alternate way of reading that would be that more console players were put off by the so-called "complexity" of the first title, and decided not to even give the sequel a try.

That said, I don't disagree with your overall point, just your interpretation of statistics. :P
You're assuming console players went in to the first whole hog thinking it was going to be a "consolized" game. Again, consoles represent the overwhelming majority of sales on the first title. ;)

Well I'd say publishers and marketting are more to blame than any specific platform. Its just peoples associations that they have in their head with them really. Blaming customers/consumers if an iffy thing. Like do you condemn a murderer with the motive or the man who gave him the means.

And yes, slightly disappointing dumbed down games are equal to the act of murder llolololo
It is totally an equal offence. THEY'RE MURDERING THE INDUSTRY. TROLLOLOLOLOLOL

KingNL

20th May 2012, 22:04

I have to agree although the original is pretty epic too but this one just amazed me like no other game ever did